


viv's oneshots n stuff

by ephemeraldark



Category: Asagao Academy: Normal Boots Club, PBG Hardcore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Tags will change as I update, one shot collection!, writer bot stuff is here ig
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22343968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeraldark/pseuds/ephemeraldark
Summary: in which writer bot tells me some things, and i make an effort to listen to themhc/asagao prompts and sprints! au's and tags will be at the beginning of each chapter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 5





	1. stranger danger

**Author's Note:**

> this prompt came from the discord writerbot!  
> [141] A man you faintly recognize is glaring at you as though he wished you dead. Who is he and why is he so angry?  
> au--some kind of hardcore reincarnation au, where everyone in the cast apart from dean has no memory of the events that occurred in their past lives.
> 
> alternatively titled, i see a todd i floor it

“Don’t look now, but there’s someone staring at you.” Todd turned an eyebrow up at Austin, the two of them sitting together at a cheap bar hidden away in the back streets of the city where they attended university together. “He looks angry, too.” Fantastic. Belligerent drunks were unavoidable in as shady and rundown bar as this, but Todd had always made a point to stay  _ away  _ from anything even remotely suspicious rather than engaging. If given another choice, he would gladly take any other source of leisure (if it could even be called that) than this bar—but in college, especially in a small town halfway between nowhere and Antarctica, sources of entertainment came few and far between. 

Todd tapped his fingers on the bar, trying to read the look on Austin’s face. His roommate would pull a prank like this, it really wouldn’t be surprising—Todd would probably turn around and Jeff or someone he and Austin both knew would be sitting at the other end of the bar with a ridiculously fake angry face. Besides, the half-finished video sitting in the editor on his laptop was more pressing than some fellow college kid throwing him a shady look. His roommate’s tentative attempt at a YouTube career was also certainly more interesting than a bar spat.

“Dude, I swear, he’s got  _ murder  _ in his eyes,” Austin mumbled, lowering his voice as to not concern the others around them. Still believing it one of Austin’s dramatics, Todd spun himself around on the rickety stool, scanning the sea of tired businessmen and weary college kids before he found exactly who Austin had been talking about. Perhaps  _ murder  _ wasn’t an exaggeration—two dark eyes burned at him from under dark-framed glasses. It was a look that sent a chill of inexplicable recognition down Todd’s spine, the flames reaching towards him burning so hot that they felt cold all over again. 

“I have no idea who that is,” Todd responded honestly. The more he looked at the stranger's face, the more confusion he felt. A strange feeling akin to what he could only assume was déjà vu washed over him: the longer he looked, the more he felt like he knew this person. He knew that this was a stranger, and yet there was something so confusingly, vaguely  _ familiar _ about the dark hair and eyes, the shape of the nose, the angle of their shoulders. Todd found himself frozen in place, and time seemed to slow infinitely as he studied the eerie stranger. 

And as quick as he had looked, the side of another person’s face shifted into his line of sight and restarted the normal flow of time. Yet Todd still couldn’t look away, damn near  _ transfixed  _ even as the world around him began to thaw and buzz with tired, dreary life once more. That face...something told him that it was vaguely familiar as well. Less so than the man originally glaring at him, but still so faintly recognizable that Todd wondered for a second if he’d been possessed, or perhaps he was having some out-of-body hallucinations and he’d wake up on the floor in his dorm in five minutes to Austin panicking and paramedics on the way. 

The stranger’s companion finally turned around. A slightly rounder face than the first one, but the details of the shape of his face, coupled with the almost smirking expression he held and again, dark-rimmed glasses, were painfully unforgettable. The smirk faded after a second, replaced with a look of unease, and the temperature in the room dropped a good ten degrees.

The second person turned away and Todd was met again with a glare that felt even angrier from the stranger Austin had initially pointed out. The Smug Stranger, as Todd had dubbed him, seemed to be saying something to the Angry Stranger, who nodded and spoke a response with ever breaking eye contact with Todd. The world began to narrow in again, his eyes tunneling in on the face as he wracked his brain for any reason why he would be in this situation in the first place. 

Without warning, a white-hot pain shot up his left temple, so strong that he instinctively curled in on himself a little and threw a hand up to the source of the pain. As soon as his fingers touched his head, a series of images flashed through it. A tall, white castle, surrounded by falls and pools of lava; a snowy plain full of animated skeletons and green-blue humanoids; a land with no horizon and ground made of pale yellow sponge; a lone figure running through a field with a herd of white wolves. Images of bodies being mutilated and burned; a long line of crosses holding up a setting sun; and finally—both of the strangers (accompanied by one more, someone he couldn’t help but feel looked like Austin’s friend Jeff), wearing strange, blocky armor and talking to each other peacefully as they dug through a strange red substance that looked like mystery meat and fell away like dry dirt. 

The collection of images was as terrifying as it was bizarre. Had he been possessed? Todd was almost certain he had never seen any of those scenarios in his twenty-something years of life, and yet each memory felt like a solar beam running through him, thawing out a piece of him long frozen away in his soul. 

“Are you okay?” Austin sounded distant, as if he was speaking while Todd had his head underwater. Todd nodded, then shook his head, then ended up somewhere in between with a diagonal head movement or two.

“Yea. Just a weird headache. Probably from looking at this damn thing all day.” He pointed to the laptop still sitting open on the bar, an easy enough excuse. Austin gave an apologetic grimace that somehow looked more concerned than anything. He didn’t need to know that meeting eyes with this stranger gave him some deja-vu-flashback feeling ripped straight out of a sci-fi movie. He risked another glance over to the stranger, who had looked away from him momentarily and was instead talking to the man sitting next to him.

_ “Dean, dude, I think you’re being a little dramatic about this.” _ __  
_  
_ __ “I’m not fucking around, Ray, that’s him.”

Dean? Ray? Who the hell were those people? More concerningly, how did he just hear a conversation happening a good twenty feet away over the dull chatter surrounding him?

“Austin, I think we should get the tab.” Todd said, voice laced with urgency. “Before you ask, I’m fine. I just wanna get out of here.” Austin shot back a look that told Todd he didn’t believe him at all. Fair enough. Todd wouldn’t believe himself, either. He sighed slightly and raised his hand nonetheless, flagging down one of the bartenders making their rounds along the bar for their check.

Todd risked another look over at the strangers. They were both looking at him now, and he scanned their faces slowly, hesitating before looking at the one wearing a mask of anger. Dean, he presumed, from the conversation he’d somehow overheard moments before. Although he only dared to meet his eyes for a quick moment, it caused a feeling somewhere between anxiety and vertigo to barrel over him; like someone had injected ice water into his veins and then dropped him off of a skyscraper.

It was the type of vague feeling that was wildly individual and yet universally despised: the feeling that you were suddenly in danger, that you weren’t supposed to be—somewhere. Wherever the hell you were when the feeling hit. Like he needed to be anywhere but there. His grip on the counter tightened subconsciously, another rush of unfamiliar scenes hitting him: scenes of pale green creatures in open fields, large pits ending in nearly majestic flows of lava and water, flames dancing across treetops as he looked out from what must have been an old, decrepit stone temple.

The stranger looked away then, turning to face the bartender that had just approached him. The shift in his expression was jarring as every trace of anger fell away, replaced by a small smile that felt as warm as it was genuine. It glowed, like a warm fire. Despite that warmth, or maybe  _ because  _ of that warmth, it sent a chill down Todd’s spine. Just what had he done to this man to warrant such a furious glare?

On second thought, perhaps he  _ didn’t _ want to know.

“Are you ready to go?” Austin asked, shaking Todd’s shoulder ever so lightly and holding out his jacket. His hands were cold—had they always been that cold? The entire  _ world  _ was suddenly and inexplicably colder, and he took back his jacket gratefully. Todd shook himself out of a daze enough to thank Austin and blame the chills on the door being opened by incoming patrons. He’d even finished tucking the bar stool back under the counter, walked to the door, and was just about to open the door and get the  _ hell  _ out when—

“Wait, wait a moment, please!?”

An out-of-breath bartender darted up him. She couldn’t have been much older than many of the students here, hair pulled back in a small bun, and wearing one of those cheap black plastic chokers from Hot Topic looped around her neck. There were bags under her eyes, and she frantically tucked a notepad into the apron tied around her waist before fishing something out.

“Someone—the guys down there—asked me to give you this.” She held a cocktail napkin towards him. It was crumpled up, the paper clearly having been wet at some point by a glass and then dried again. Clearly, it had been sitting in the young woman’s pocket for a while. Dear god, had that guy been staring him down for an hour and neither he nor Austin noticed? He knew that Austin could be a bit oblivious at times (and both of them had been working on editing Austin’s newest video), but Todd liked to think that if someone was staring at him with the flames of hell in their eyes he’d catch on at least somewhat quickly.

“Austin, are you playing a prank on me, by chance?” He asked upon reading the message scrawled across the shitty, too-thin paper. Todd looked up at the bartender, whose smile suddenly felt a little too  _ knowing _ for the situation at hand. He turned away from her, and back to Austin, holding out the napkin. Had he held her gaze for a moment longer, he might have even recognized her.

To his displeasure, Austin shook his head no. He gave the napkin back to Todd quickly, as if touching it was suddenly hurting him. Todd looked again at the note, the black lines searing themselves into his retinas.

_ we know who you are,  _ **_wizard_ ** _. _

He looked back up towards the bar, scanning the crowd again for the bartender, or either of the strangers who’d been staring him down.

None of them were anywhere to be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u as always for reading! comments n kudos are super appreciated <3


	2. siren's call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hee hoo update time...from the twenty minute writing sprint + some editing afterwords to make the ending better and adding in lyrics!!  
> prompt: 'There was music coming from deep, deep inside the cave. I recognized the tune.' from deepwaterwritingprompts on tumblr!

Jeff had been lost for days, maybe even months. There had been a storm, a horrible storm unlike anything any of them had ever seen in their normally sunny world. The thunder raged for days on end, lightning striking with terrifying speed, forcing the group to scatter as their house was inevitably struck and burned to the ground.

He didn’t even know if anyone else was still alive. He hadn’t felt anything strange, hadn’t had that weird sense of  _ death  _ that he expected so much. It was a distinct  _ sixth sense _ , always starting with a bit of dizziness, a hint of vertigo, and then an unmistakable sense of dread in his stomach. Could they all still be alive? It seemed unlikely, but it seemed that maybe there was a chance at a miracle for once in his unlucky life.

He’d found his way to a mountainous area, the tall peaks slicing through the azure sky. They surrounded him on all sides, but from the gaps between the stony crags he could see the glimmer of a blue-green sea expanding past the horizon. Water. Water was good: it allowed for travel, it allowed for plants and animals to live. He would be best off if he settled down near water. As much as he wanted to stay and search for the rest of his friends, he knew that he would only run himself to his own death if he didn’t prepare beforehand.

Carefully, he descended the face of the mountain, taking care not to fall too far and risk hurting his legs. Yet, near the bottom, a strange melody began to reach his ears. For a moment, he assumed he was only hearing things: a figment of hope produced by his loneliness, he presumed. But the further he descended, the louder the music grew. It was a somber tune, like a nursery rhyme transcribed into a minor key, and he  _ knew  _ he recognized the song, even if he couldn’t attach a name to it.

_ Are you going to Scarborough fair...? _

Finally, at the base of the mountain, he found the source of the music. A dark cave. It was wide, the mouth opening out into the sea, stalagmites rising from the ground like jagged teeth. He stepped towards them as if in a trance. Even though he could hear the sound of his footsteps in the shallow water, echoing down the cave, the voice didn't stop singing that song, over and over. 

Maybe it was a friend? He had no way of knowing if he didn’t go in…

But that could also be a horrible idea. He was no stranger to the cruel reality of the world he and his friends had been trapped in by that  _ Wizard  _ so long ago. He weighed his options for no longer than a minute before throwing caution to the salty waves behind him and taking a step into the cave proper. 

It was hard to get his footing on the salty, slippery rocks, eroded into perfection by years of the sea’s caress. He braced a hand on the wall the other one out at his side like a child walking along a fence for balance. He didn’t have any materials, no coal to make a torch, so he would be forced to navigate on touch alone unless his eyes somehow acclimated to the consuming darkness.

_ Lying between seafoam and sea sand…. _

As he began to make his way through the cave, the air grew more and more humid, the smell of salt and brine hanging heavy in the air. From the end, he could almost see a glimmer of blue-green light, coming from the same area as the voice he heard singing so peacefully. If it was safe to run on the slippery rocks, he would have taken off, but rather, he kept his composure and toed carefully along the slick rocks, towards the growing glimmers of light and the beautiful voice.

_ Remember me to one who lives there…. _

He reached the chamber shortly, a little section of the cave partially cut off by the natural formations of rocks within the cave itself. He clung to one of the rocks for balance, peeking around the dark stone and coming face to face with--

\--what?

He had heard of sirens in folklore before, but he didn’t think they were real creatures. Rather, he assumed that they were an explanation for why so many sailors didn’t return home, a tale to comfort mourning wives and crying children as they lost the provider for their family. But he seemed to be face to face with one right now--a strange but beautiful creature.

He also didn’t think they could be male--every depiction of a siren he had ever seen was classically feminine. But no, the  _ human? Siren?  _ Sitting upon a smooth, flat rock definitely seemed to be a guy, probably about his age as well. He couldn’t make out the face, as the siren was turned 90-degrees away from him, but he could see a long tail, black with iridescent glimmers of turquoise and aqua and deep green and gold, waving lightly across the water, the fanned-tail making soft, sweeping motions across the still surface. The siren appeared to be doing something, arms gathered in front of him as he sang, moving rhythmically to the beat of his song. In a moment of foolishness, or perhaps bravery, Jeff risked another step forward--

And fell directly into the water as the rock he was standing on cut off.

He pulled himself from the startlingly cold water as quickly as he could, but there was no use in trying to run. The siren had turned to him, eyes glowing blue-grey in the dimly-lit chamber. There was a moment of silence between the two of them, before the siren grabbed Jeff’s wrist. Long, pointed nails dug into his skin as he searched the siren’s face, blinking seawater from his eyes as he tried to determine why that face was  _ so damn familiar.  _

“Luke?” He found the name tumbling out before he even realized he was saying it. The siren’s eyes widened, his grip tightening on Jeff’s bony wrist to the point of drawing little slivers of blood where the nails broke his skin.

“You’re alive?” Luke’s eyes widened. It was a bit of an awkward position for them--with Luke floating in the shallow pool of water elegantly and Jeff on his knees, hand still in the siren’s grasp. After a long moment, Luke sighed, dropping Jeff’s hand and glancing down at the rocks between the two of them. The still water was now laced with ripples from the slow movements of their breathing. Luke's head was now tilted down, but from what Jeff could see, he carried an immense amount of regret in the lines of his features.

“You can’t be here,” Luke said, retreating to a far corner of the tide pool. He had his arms crossed, digging into his elbows as if he was physically restraining himself. “If you know what’s good for you, leave. Right now,  _ please.” _

The strange blue glow in his eyes had returned, emitting the same wavelengths as little bioluminescent protists that littered the shore on moonless nights. It felt like his legs were frozen in place, the rocks underneath him so cold that they turned his muscles to ice and rendered him immoble. He could see Luke morphing in front of him, his eyes becoming narrower and darker, nails growing longer and sharp fangs emerging from below his upper lip. The transformation had to have been as painful as it was fantastical.

All at once, the cave became infinitely colder, the sudden drop in temperature shocking Jeff to his feet. Luke barely moved apart from the sharp rise and fall of his chest, dark eyes swirling as he tracked Jeff’s slow movements. He suddenly felt like he was staring down a shark, or maybe even one of those weird, boxy guardian fish that haunted the deep-sea temples. He hadn’t seen one of those in  _ ages.  _ It pained him to think that maybe, they had been the reason Luke was no longer  _ human,  _ but there was no time for rumination when he was suddenly staring death in the face.

Like a coward, he said a silent apology to Luke and dashed for the entrance of the cave, slipping and stumbling upon the dark rocks until he burst into the blinding sunlight. The sun had set considerably, a glowing ball of fire resting lightly atop the horizon. Set ablaze orange and crimson and salmon by the blazing celestial body, the clear blue water reflected the vibrant pigments of the sky. Finally safe, away from the horrors of that strange cave, Jeff leaned against a sand dune, catching his breath. The sand stuck to his skin and his clothes, accompanied the unpleasant gritty feeling of grains between his teeth.

It was then that he heard the siren’s song begin again, carrying even more grief than it had before Jeff stumbled into the cave.

_ He was once a true love of mine…. _

_ Are you going to Scarborough fair? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we going :plane: siren time boys  
> i don't know why the first song i thought of was scarborough fair but i felt it was fitting tbh


End file.
